The present invention relates to a panty brief for holding a diaper and consisting wholly or partly of elastic textile material, preferably made by knitting or crocheting, and formed as a flat, substantially rectangular bag, the bag sides of which form a front piece and a back piece, which are closed along the marginal edge zones at the sides and along a central part of the marginal edge zones at the bottom to form a crotch region, separating two non-connected parts of the marginal edge zones at the bottom of the bag for producing leg openings, which panty brief comprises means for holding the diaper which is at least partially accomodated therein.
A panty brief, which substantially is of the above described type is known e.g. from U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,324, and the present invention is a further development of the known panty brief which makes the panty brief suitable for holding the diaper.
Panty briefs intended for holding diapers are known in different types, however, these are made as factory-tailored panty brief provided with sewed-on pockets inside the panty briefs. The diaper is placed in these pockets so as to be partly or totally contained therein. Hereby a secure holding of the diaper is obtained even when the user is physically active.
However, such panty briefs are disadvantageous, partly in that they have to be manufactured in a relatively great number of sizes and designs so as to fit diapers and persons of different individual sizes, and partly in that these panty briefs are expensive to manufacture as a great part of after-fashioning in the form of cutting, edging, seaming, etc. is required.
In an attempt to solve some of these problems and to provide cheap panty briefs it is known to manufacture the panty briefs from wholly or partly elastic material by knitting or crocheting. A possibility of holding is provided in these panty briefs by using a looser and firmer knitting in different portions of the panty brief and by knitting-in elastic threads in different portions. Accordingly, a diaper may be contained in a more loosely knitted portion, whereas the more firmly knitted portions and the elastic threads will be positioned along the edge zone of the diaper, thereby holding it.
In many situations, however, this holding of the diaper will not provide sufficient security, especially when the user is physically active, as the diaper may be displaced to a position in which it will be useless. Moreover, these panty briefs are disadvantageous when they are used by psychically handicapped persons, who may easily remove the diaper either intentionally or unintentionally.
Even though these panty briefs may be manufactured at low costs and even though they in many applications will act satisfactorily they will not give a holding of a diaper which is sufficiently secure for all applications.
So as to remedy this drawback and to provide a better holding of a diaper it has been proposed to make a panty brief, e.g. as known from DE published application No. 1,933,530, comprising holding means. These holding means are made in form of elastic ribbon-shaped material which is intended to be placed across the end portions of the diaper. However, such a construction is suitable only in conjunction with smaller diapers placed so as to extend through the crotch region, as is the case with sanitary towels. Accordingly, the panty brief as disclosed in said DE patent specification will be unsuitable for use in conjunction with larger diapers used for incontinent adults, especially if the user is physically active or if the user is a psychically handicapped person, who may remove the diaper either intentionally or unintentionally. Moreover, the known holding means are connected with the panty brief at an after-fashioning. An after-fashioning is labour consuming and accordingly, it constitutes an undesired and very great part of the production costs. Furthermore, the known holding means cannot be used in conjunction with diapers used by adult men suffering from urine incontinence.